Dantalian no Shoka – 04

It’s hard to believe that the author of Dantlian no Shoka, Gakuto Mikumo, is also the author of the eminently forgettable (an opinion I confess is based only on the anime, not the light novels) Asura Cryin’. There are frequently moments when it feels like this series is genuinely profound – and that’s not a word I toss around much when it comes to anime.

In contrast to last week, which was really all about (successfully) making the regular cast come alive as characters, this week was all about the story. And it was easily the most interesting of the four mysteries Dantalian has offered so far, dark and ugly and sad and even a little deep. As for Huey and Dalian, once the story was in full swing they were really observers more than participants, and indeed had no direct bearing on the final outcome other than to be our eyes and ears on the scene.

It’s always dangerous to try and read too much into the motives of a writer, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Umerura-sensei was making a little comment about the nature of fandom with this piece. Dalian is a fujoshi, apparently – a huge fan of a yaoi love story – “Crown of the Dog Days” – by a young writer named Lenny Lents (Hino Satoshi). But Lenny died after writing the first two novels in the trilogy, not before having left behind a letter to Huey’s Grandfather pleading for help. Dalian is only too eager to investigate, clinging to the hope of a resolution to the trilogy.

As bad as Dalian is, the real dark side of the otaku image here is Paula Dickinson (Takayama Minami). If you’ve read Stephen King’s “Misery” or seen the adaptation you have some idea what to expect from Paula, but Annie Wilkes has nothing on this yandere – Paula makes Yuno Gasai look like Yune from Ikoku Meiro. Through the phantom Book of Soul Exchange “Ras Alhague” she’s found a way to keep Lenny alive and under her thumb – by killing him and his lover Leticia Serkis (Satou Rina) over and over, with each exchanging places among the living with the other. For the flaw in the soul exchange is that the deceased can only be resurrected for one day before their body begins to decay. With this brutal form of blackmail, Paula – posing as Lenny’s wife – intends to keep Lenny around until he writes an ending that satisfies her fujoshi sensibilities, with her favorite characters alive and paired off and none of that icky hetero love.

This is a pretty grisly scenario, and the sheer horror of it is brought off beautifully here, along with the depth of Paula’s depravity. I’d forgive you if you felt the resolution to their situation was a bit of a deux ex machina, but I’m happy to forgive it because I’m a big fan of poetic justice if it’s done as well as it is here. As I said it’s risky to assume too much about what an author intended, but I can’t help feel a statement is being made about taking fandom to an extreme – and this is an area that GAINAX has some experience with as well, it being a favorite topic of Hideki Anno’s.

With two very solid and dramatically different episodes back-to-back, I can’t help but be encouraged about Dantalian no Shoka and where it’s headed. As a little bonus, both thematically and visually this felt more like GAINAX than any of the earlier episodes. I was especially struck by the animation in the final scene with Huey and Dalian driving home, which had an absolutely classic GAINAX look to it. I’m happy with this show being what it’s been the last two weeks, but if GAINAX put their own stamp on it so much the better as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve been waiting for this. oAo
Watched it online, I am such a fail XD My DL speed is slow, so….mkv version later XD

Great episode as always. Half of Higurashi has been shared =w=
Still, the manga looked better with all the gore stuff. And what the hell did they do to manga!Paula Lentz ._.
I like her look better in the manga XD

I´m not sure if Paula is at the level of Yuno Gasai but she is definetly one crazy yandere. By the way, I´m fan of Stephen King and you are right ENZO, this episode has a lot of similarities with Misery, just add a little supernatural elelment and multiplie the crszinies for a millon.

In another matter, I desagree with you ENZO, both Asura Cryin´and Dantalian no Shoka have many similarities but they have two very different styles ( love-comedy and mistery-gore). They share the topic of humans playing with something under the contol of God, for their own selfish ends and how they bring misery to those around them in consequence, at least that´s my oppinion.

That DoS and AC shares a author is something new to me but it doesn’t hard to believe at all. IMHO, I think Asura Crying was a great story. How to say this, it was a mediocre/bad adaptation but the ‘goodness’ of the original can still be felt… I wonder if I’m being undestandable here.

Anyway, I’ve only read few chapter of the LN (wish I could read more) bt its clear they are much better than the anime adaptation.

On Dantalian no Shoka itself, echoing other people this is really not a mystery series. It is a story about books, esoteric knowledge, Huey’s relationship with Dalian, and Dalian’s cuteness. :)

The ending to Asura Cryin’ sucked. The book was far worse, but still I hate that kind of no-resolution, resolution. And in no other anime have I been so confused as to what was going on. Once I read the books I got it, but then I was left with their horrible ending. World 1, 2, 3 wtf? Needs to be explained better. I like DNS alot because it has the cute romance aspect of AC without all the crazy sci-fi stuff. I normally like sci-fi…well when it’s explained.

@Enzo
Perhaps the word fan girl would be a better choice of word.
Since fan girl both equals a fanatic girl which she is and could mean Fujoshi. Therein lies the pun.
Paula Dick did not spoil any otaku image as she is not one. That was a novel. A hardcover book.
According to the first episode, not anyone can use a phantom book, which is why the circus came to life. But so far we have kids reading them and an insane woman. So what is the exact qualifications needed?

Well in episode 3 they left out the explanation that the book of wisdom can only be read by children, if an adult tries to read it they won’t see anything legible. Also since this story isn’t translated except in the manga but I don’t remember seeing them mention anything about this book’s requirements if it had any.

The original meaning is someone with an obsessive interest or rather just about any fan of any topic. Most of the time, it refers to those who like manga, video games, and anime, but you could practically apply it for anything.

Like a friend of mine likes Diane Agron, so we can refer to her as a Diane Agron Otaku. Or someone who likes the Twilight or Harry Potter series as otakus as well. It’s certainly sterotype for certain fandoms, but that doesn’t mean you can only use it for those fandoms. Also doesn’t help that there is some negative connotation with the word either, when really, there shouldn’t be.

Yuno is crazy to the effect of doing anything for Yuki and their good end.
Paula won’t do anything to get the story straight except repeatedly killing the same two people. Yuno kills everyone. Her family included.

i may have remembered incorrectly but, didn’t dalia say something in the first episode how you could just let the phantom books unravel themselves? i could be reading too much into it but it seems like our protagonists don’t actually have to do anything except prevent the phantom books from doing more harm, ‘chain message’ style, by re-appropriating said books. the series feels like the characters are just reading a book, in that sense :o

Well, what they are doing is not preventing the phantom books from doing more harm. They are trying to stop people who are using the phantom books to do harm. Not that they have been very successful at that so far.

I like to think of Dantalian no Shoka as a slightly dark slice-of-life anime/novel/manga with a little touch of mystery, rather than a full-fledged mystery work. I have heard many people ranting about how the mysteries and tricks in this anime are way too simple, because they were anticipating a great mystery work with action packed from GAINAX. To me, this work gives a similar feel to Kino no Tabi, where subtle mystery atmosphere is merely used as a tool for delivering the main idea of each story, and I really like this kind of episodes where events just unfold in front of the main characters who play more passive roles.

Nevertheless, on the action scenes, I still find the pacing are quite off…I mean, you see, reading paragraphs to paragraphs while the opponent are about to strike. In the comic it makes more sense that Dalian directly use the books rather than having Huey read them…

Dalian the yaoi fangirl… lol!
And the winter-landscape-lonely-farm brought to me visions of King books too…
All I can say in the end, amounts to the prayer Huey recited…
Though, I think, that book could be useful to punish multiple murderers… On the other hand, risk of misuse is too great.
And Dalian descends into the depths of fanfiction! Dont give up the ship! Die for our ship!

Well, deviation from a different adaptation is not unexpected. After all they have a third source (the novel). Question is, how much of this deviated from the novel? I read the manga as well, but I still like this episode.

Though I don’t really know much about novel industry nor do I read a lot of books, I do know that there are authors who write stories with the main character(s)/narrator as opposite of their own gender. However, a (seemingly)straight man writing a novel with homosexual main characters is something I have never encountered. Maybe he has some *cough* experience. =D

P.S. Am I the only one who instantly thought of Shinjin(Celestials) from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu when I saw the thing(?) the couple transformed into? Honestly, it was the first thing that came to mind with it being clear/translucent and all, only with a different color. But maybe that’s because I just read the chapters 10-11 of the light novel(finally translated to English) so the series is still pretty fresh in my mind.

Eva? I guess it would remind remind people of angels. Although I have watched the movie(s), I’m too young to have gotten into eva when it first came out so it isn’t very prominent in my mind. But what reminds me of shinjin in this one is that it’s clear/translucent and glowing.

So far this is the only anime in this season I dare say I will dearly miss when it ends later. And I still like how smart this anime is and surprisingly deep. I like the part about the resistance. Although the part when they turned into some kind of monster is still WTF at least the resistance explanation still gives a nice vibe.
Is the manga even better than this? If yes I need to get my hand on it soon!!

@Divine
More graphic than seeing Lenny Lents head shot off his body, flying and falling next to him .. ewww (and i have read my share of graphic manga, but still within the context of the story and style this scene was pretty creepy in the anime as it is)

Pretty wicked episode .. the “killing” scene was pretty spine chilling and this series truly proves again and again that it is meant to please book readers the most (seeing how the story here is somewhat based on “Misery” by King).

Also .. love the moral of the story .. obsessive fans can be very dangerous and in their excessive love to the writer/creator of the original work and wanting to impose their own views over it they actually disrespect it the most .. and that includes Dalian not just Paula .. although Dalian is much less obsessed than Paula .. who even beat the crazy lady from Misery XD

Well, as obsessive as she gets, I can’t see Dalian imposing her view on the writer/creator. She might get angry, complain, lost love for the writer, eventually ignore the writer’s work, if she disagree with the writer. As the ending hinted, fanfic is the way forward. Sometimes fanfic may even become new works that are considered really good (this has been proven in history many times).